Why Do You Use Twitter? (Collective Effervescence)

One of the biggest things I found with the TwitterAustralia survey was that people love just connecting. I think there’s comfort in the fact that people might care about something you have to say, even if it’s of little consequence. One of the reasons blogs are so popular I’m sure.

I want to thank all the people who let me know why they use Twitter - so many people are in it for the friendship and connecting with others. Twitter isn’t a place full of scammers, trolls and general knobs and for that reason it works at the moment. Here’s what a few people shared about why they use Twitter:

Fun, support, friendship.
(barbs1)

I love connecting with people, not just in my industry :-)
(Devar)

My manager encouraged me to do it at first, then I start to see the good thing about it, being able to connect with other people not just within the same industry, but outside as well.
(ignatiusw)

Keeping in touch with people all over the world that I would otherwise not be able to maintain contact with.

And stalking of course.

(MrPatto)

I use twitter for many reasons:

• Networking
• Driving Readers to my blogs
• It makes me smarter
• It acts as a ‘watercooler’ (gives me company - which is important as I work alone)
• It’s great for research as I write
• It’s fun
• It’s powerful (I recently launched a project on Twitter and had 10,000 people eyeball it within 24 hours)

The list could go on and on - I discover new things to love about Twitter every few days.
(Problogger)

Bruce Achterberg was one of the respondents from the TwitterAustralia survey and before answering the question “Why do you use Twitter?” he cleared a few hours of time* and decided to write this response… It was one amongst quite a few but I thought worthy of repeating. Does it resonate with with you?

I use Twitter to express myself in a way that shares value and inspires people to self-alignment. I do this by doing my best to honour my self-alignment, which sets an example and provides me with many stories and insights to share with those interested in making some sort of improvement in their lives or utilising their potential more effectively.

I started using Twitter regularly after I saw popular blogger and personal development expert Steve Pavlina using it, noticing what a great, synergistic vehicle for value it was. I had joined months before, but couldn’t envision a way to use Twitter that inspired me until later.

Primarily, Twitter is another way to express my purpose for being here. I’m here to grow and explore what it means for myself and others to be “strong” and effective in a holistic, inclusive sense, and I choose to express that message by raising awareness of often overlooked ways to put our strengths and talents to use in a way that better honours our massive potential. My primary vehicle for that message is communication, currently written and verbal, although I expect to explore many other creative avenues.

On a level others can more readily relate to, I also enjoy the direct and indirect benefits of Twitter, such as improved writing skill, the ability to measure stats and other metrics in a creative way to help myself more effectively provide value in a sustainable way, and also the ability to learn from what I write as I tap into the recesses of my subconscious and glimpse ideas that I was not yet aware of. As Anna Conlan recently shared with me, “We teach what we’re here to learn.”

If you think this message is long, you should have seen my writing before I started using Twitter! ;)

Twitter is a great way to start a rich, varied conversation—an exchange of value and energy—allowing you to connect with those around you. The interaction itself is intrinsically rewarding, but I’ve even experienced direct value, such as a recent synchronicity I experienced after reading a Tweet by Darren Rowse where he mentioned the “Thesis” Wordpress theme, one of the best premium (for-pay) Wordpress themes I’ve seen so far—a theme with a level of customisation, functionality, and on-going support that I (a non-coder) have been looking for to help me create a Wordpress theme that resonated with what I envision, without needing the coding skills of a ninja.

I think the main lesson to take away from Twitter is that there are many unexpected benefits from exploring new things and simply getting yourself out there. As Steve Pavlina says, “making mistakes is not the issue. Missing opportunities is.” We’re stronger together, and Twitter is a great way to facilitate that connection and exchange.

Why do you use Twitter?
*Bruce may not have cleared a few hours - I may indeed have made that up

Twitter Australia : Does Location Really Matter? (Sydney Rules!)

Following on from the list of respondents in the Twitter Australia survey, I have sorted out a list of people’s locations. Some interesting results have come out from watching the survey respondents develop, there are things to learn about how Twitter works and how to get your message to far corners of Twitter.

When the survey started I was interested in where people said they lived. A contingent of Brisbane Tweeters were quite active, Sydney was unsurprisingly coming first but Melbourne Tweeters were lagging behind my expectations. So I announced this to be the case and Melbourne suddenly sprang to action quickly catching and overtaking Brisbane. It made me wonder - if with Twitter there are no geographic borders yet people still respond to a call of ‘Brisbane is beating Melbourne’ would (say you mapped Twitter relationships geographically) you see a large number of networks/hubs centred around geographic location? I expect you would.

Adelaide and Perth were also up there as you would hope, though I was expecting was a few more people from Perth to have responded as the Edge of the Web conference was on during that period. Twitter seemed quite active with #eotw so I thought people watching this tag would pick up on it with this announcement but alas, they could muster but 29 respondents in total.

What disappoint me most was Canberra. I expected a few more than 5 respondents for some reason (@malcomturnbull I wonder why you didn’t not respond? ;) ). @NathanaelB is a Canberran Tweeter who didn’t respond to the survey who I was particularly hoping would (though I didn’t ask him directly, wanting to test out the strength of the Retweets). Why? Because he is well connected and seems influential in the Twitter Australia scene and if I am right about Twitter networks still being geographically based - then his retweet could have seen more Canberran respondents.

Take a quick look over the people following you, and people you follow. Do they lean toward a geographic region(s)? Do you know who the network hubs are in your area or other areas? Comment below, I’d love to hear what you have to say.

The following are the location results as of today:

Twitter Australia

Recently I (@niphal) conducted a self-administered survey of what I like to call Twitter Australia. Personally, I find that Twitter although useful to network with - was not the easiest to use in terms of broad overviews of groups of people. I was unable to find a list of people around Australia that wasn’t a ‘king of the mountain’ list and Twitter’s search function wasn’t working. So I just asked a few things of people and said I would release the results. Thank you for participating if you are on the list, it has been great to see that not everyone on Twitter is a web nerd.

I hope you can use this list to make new connections and network with people, it’s not very high tech or web 2.0 but I hope it is useful. Leave a comment or tweet me if you would like to be added to the list.